


Muscle Memory

by espaano1preludio



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Zombie Apocalypse, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-08-16 13:17:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8103934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espaano1preludio/pseuds/espaano1preludio
Summary: "Daryl could see the pale pink of the sunrise echo through the dusty grey twilight and he thought for a moment that it was beautiful. He itched and the blood ran beneath his fingernails."  His nightmare is a cabin in northern Georgia. He survives. The boy from town keeps trying to make him live. (Pre-apocalypse, if Rick and Daryl lived closer together and met before shit went down)





	1. Dead Walking

The heart is a muscle, but the muscle has memory. The scars lining Daryl's skin itched incessantly, old blood welled up and hardened in a suspended timeline. Tissue peeled off in a morbidly satisfying way but they bled again. Daryl could see the pale pink of the sunrise echo through the dusty grey twilight and he thought for a moment that it was beautiful. He itched and the blood ran beneath his fingernails. 

Shaking off the tepid Georgia dew, Daryl left through the open window of his bedroom. Skirting around to the front of the slouching house he could see the form of his father, sleeping in his armchair with dark 'chaw round his lips. He picked up his crossbow from where he left it behind an evergreen, a precaution he took ever since he caught Merle trying to sell it for drug money. 

It was a clear day, the kind of day that left you exposed. Daryl wished for a cloud to appear so he could wrap it round his head like a blanket. He crept through the forest as nocturnal animals returned to their places of rest and others awakened. Branches tittered and shook with birds of many kinds. He reached a familiar pond, where his brother once brought him on an unsuccessful spearfishing trip. Merle just drank moonshine and laughed and Daryl remembered laughing, too. 

His reflection swam before him as he listened for bigger game. His face became too gentle when he was off his guard, so he set it right again, hardening his features to shroud his measly sixteen years. Youth in his world meant weakness so he put on the skin of his older brother, skin that bore similar scars but was harder. His dark blond hair was growing out of its latest choppy cut and fanned across the top of his forehead, his blue eyes shocks of color on his face. He wore no camouflage while hunting because his old jeans and heavy poncho were stained with earth. Not to mention he couldn't afford it anyways. 

A half an hour later there was a fat rabbit and three squirrels strung across Daryl's back. He was tensing to snag another rabbit when a boyish laugh and a crackle of footsteps in the distance disrupted the still moment. The rabbit fled. Daryl grumbled, remembering that on weekends the townies liked to bring their fabric roofs and their fabric cocoon- beds and visit his woods like it was a damn theme park. He could hear them getting closer to where he was crouched, his trained ears picked up on two heavy footfalls and two lighter trailing behind. Probably male and then female, respectively. He made sure to keep hidden as he heard voices.

“Come on Shane!” A girl drawled in a high piercing voice. “Don’t we get to know where yer takin’ us?”

The boy called Shane thrashed into view, dark hair and jumpy muscles. He gave a throaty chuckle and responded:  
“Alright Jolene, if it’ll make you shut yer damn yipper.” A second male voice further behind gave a muffled laugh as the blond girl Jolene blushed and swatted at Shane with long pink fingernails. The other two teenagers caught up by now, Daryl saw a bony girl with long dark hair and a young man with straight features and loose brown curls. They halted in a small clearing and bent their necks together at the air of adventure. They all failed to notice the silent boy listening curiously in the shaded brush. 

“My cousin Josh told me about this cabin he found when huntin’ last summer. Looked abandoned but he heard glass breakin’ and screaming comin’ from inside. He gone lookin’ in the window to see if everyone were alright and he seen a honest-to-God ghost starin’ back at him, eight feet tall and glowin’ eyes, with a face like dead walkin’. Josh was so spooked he ran two miles back to his pickup, and my cousin ain’t no easy scare, ain’t no liar neither.” Shane finished and the three other teens glanced at each other, unsure how to react. The skinny girl spoke up.

“That’s bullshit Shane. I don’t believe in no dead walkin’.” A tone of decisiveness laced her tone but her movements were still jerky and jilted, a nervous rigidness about her as if her bones just grew longer but her body was still catching up. Daryl figured that that might have actually been the case. The boy beside her served as a contrast, new muscles making his movement controlled and deliberate, as he cupped her shoulder. His voice had a certain warmth that Shane’s lacked. 

“Come on Shane, we been up all night and we’re all tired as hell. Why don’t we get back to camp and get some shuteye before the sun rises.” The boy suggested to Shane but he only sneered. 

“Shit Rick, where your balls gone? Thought you’d be game but yer actin’ just like the girls.” Shane walked backwards with cocky confidence and the girl Jolene shrieked more incoherent protests. He shook her off absentmindedly. 

Rick screwed up his mouth in a hard line as he wavered. “Fine, but only one look and if nothin’s unusual we ain’t gonna be pokin’ around.” The skinny girl whipped around to stare at Rick in surprise but Rick just shrugged in apology. Shane caught his neck in the crook of his arm and exclaimed, “That’s my brother!” They walked on towards the pond and beyond. 

Daryl followed soundlessly, a feeling like cinderblocks in his stomach. He wondered if he was the one seen by Shane’s cousin Josh that day, the dead walking. He thought he must have been. 

Daryl swore that the woods have never been louder than they were that day, the four teenagers talking about nothing in particular, excited fear making them even less observant than usual. Eight boots cracked sticks and stumbled over roots while another pair found softer purchase. They clustered close to each other as they neared Daryl’s house. 

He could see them whispering to each other, Shane ushering the other, more reluctant three. Daryl then saw his own house where he grew up through their eyes. It was a tiny, pitiable thing with grimy windows and warped, creaking wood. It looked scary but the teenagers didn’t see the real scariness between those walls, their hearts didn’t pound in their ears like Daryl’s did. It looked lonely and sad but they didn’t experience the shattering loneliness that Daryl felt sometimes, when even he couldn’t stand himself. They saw four walls and a roof; he saw his sad little world in rotting wood.

Shane shook off the clutching pink claws and encroached toward the sagging porch with a cocky swagger. Rick followed close behind, the girls trailing after. They nearly reached the steps when Daryl decided to stop them. As much as he didn’t care for these kids he knew that his father wouldn’t take kindly to their trespassing, to put it lightly.

“S’is private property. Why don’t ‘chu take a step back, boy.” He said in a low gruff voice that struck the four kids like a slap. Their tense bodies jerked and the two girls let out little screeches. Rick turned toward the sound of his voice and shoved the skinny dark-haired girl behind him. The blond girl- Jolene- stood awkwardly with her arms wrapped around her body as her head whipped toward Shane then back again. He took no notice of her, strung tight as the string of a crossbow with his hand clutching the knife hilt on his belt. 

“Who’s there? Show yourself!” Rick barked out first, surprisingly. Daryl didn’t know them but he didn’t take Rick for the leader type. He then reminded himself that he didn’t give a shit. 

He took a step out of the shadowed brush, still partially concealed in shadow. Dawn was only beginning to break and the world took on a deep blue purple tint. He figured he must have looked half wild, his unwashed state and the small game and crossbow across his poncho given to him by an Enisi* down at the reservation. It was confirmed in the way the teens inched back a bit, Shane gripping his sheathed knife tighter, making sure Daryl could see it. 

“You live here?” Shane drawled. He adopted a restless sort of shuffle, an invisible string pulling his chest closer to the sky. 

“That ain’t none of yer business. Why don’t you head on back to where ya’ll came from.” Daryl’s mischievous side took control for a moment as he continued: “Stick around here much longer and the ghost’ll see ya.” There was a sick sort of satisfaction in Daryl’s blood as the four teenagers seemed to stiffen at his words. They glanced at each other warily until the brown haired girl tugged at Rick’s sleeve with urgent movements. 

“Rick, I want to go home.” She pleaded quietly. Rick was just staring at him, something indistinguishable in his dark blue eyes. Daryl hated being stared at- it felt like his skin was being peeled back where he stood. He kept his shoulder in front of him as a buffer. Why was he doing this? He didn’t know. He just needed something, anything to happen. He was all bristles when he finally met Rick’s eyes. 

“But it ain’t the ghost you gotta worry about, not really.” Daryl’s mouth moved on it’s own now, as it continued; “see, he’ll give a yell and wake up the monster.” There was another beat of silence at his words. 

The brown haired girl was again the first to move but she only tightened her grip on Rick’s flannel.  
“Rick!” She nearly screeched, her eyes seemed to span most of her face. The blond girl Jolene was now beyond comprehension, reduced to a pink pile of pitiful whimpers. Shane visibly hardened himself as he scoffed and squared his shoulders. 

“Lori quit bein’ such a pussy. Ya’ll actually believe this dumb hick? Look at ‘im! He’s crazy!” Shane gestured in Daryl’s direction. Daryl absently thought it was a fair argument. Shane went on, movements now resembling a restless horse before a big race. “There ain’t no monster, ain’t that right ya fuckin’-” Shane halted, after making a sudden movement with his arm as if to grab Daryl and pull him further out of the shadows. He went as still as the crossbow currently trained on a spot between his eyes. The only sound was the soft hum of the woods surrounding them. 

The tension snapped as a sound of breaking glass came from inside the cabin, all five teens jumped. There was a mighty wordless roar that sent the four teenagers scrambling as Daryl backed up toward the terrible noise, crossbow still pointed toward them. 

“Go on! Get!” Daryl’s voice trailed after them as they ran back into the safety of the forest. Rick was the last to dash away, a hesitance about him long abandoned by the others. Their eyes met and Rick’s widened as Daryl felt his hair being grabbed by a familiar wide hand behind him. Rick disappeared with the others, Daryl reminded himself to buzz his hair again soon.

 

*Enisi= grandmother in Cherokee


	2. Double Exposure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick's POV. Something Happens.

Rick couldn’t stop his brain from tumbling, his eyes from burning, replaying over and over again the images he saw that day. Overlaying all those images were a pair of blue eyes that seemed to glow. 

He saw the boy. He thought at first that he looked older but then like a peek behind the curtain, the hardness slipped, just for a second, and there was a boy. 

And then there was the monster. The man. 

Rick pressed the knuckles of his pointer fingers to the inner corners of his screwed- up eyes. Relieve pressure. It didn’t work. The blue gazed steadily like a photograph developed using double exposure. 

Rick jumped as his phone vibrated in his back pocket- he wasn’t surprised to see Shane’s name on the screen. He answered;  
“Hey.”  
“Hey, asshole. Wanna tell me why you bailed on me yesterday?” Rick heard Shane’s voice alongside a cacophony of others. He didn’t remember a time when Shane was by himself. Rick let out a little sigh without fear that Shane would notice. He didn’t really do subtleties. A gust of wind made shadows lurch across his bedroom ceiling. 

“Sorry, man” Rick replied trying his best to sound regretful. “I guess I was just tired. None of us really got any sleep that night.” Rick heard Shane laugh at something someone else said.   
“Whatever, dude.” Was the response. “Come over tonight- Andrea nabbed some whiskey from ‘er daddy and if that don’t sound like a party I don’t know what the hell does.” Rick agreed, his mouth working on autopilot. He hung up the phone and sunk deeper into his mattress. 

 

Shane’s house was as it always was, like a mediocre play you’ve seen a thousand times. The same set- he creaked past the screen door, heard it slam unceremoniously behind him. He paused at the doorway to the living room with it’s old television blaring happy voices, flashing colors in the dark, just to see if Shane’s dad would look at him this time. He didn’t.  
The same cast- his friends were laughing in the basement as they continued their steady decline of coherency. Rick’s mind sung a familiar three words- a mantra that surfaces in his mind constantly. It told him:   
Nothing. Ever. Happens.

Rick thought about how his life would be so much easier if only he didn’t think so much.   
That night, he got drunk.

 

Monday morning snuck up behind him and punched the back of his head. Hard. He kept grumbled curses close to his lips as he swung his legs out of bed. Today was going to be hell.   
Shane met him near the entrance to the High School as usual and walked with him in silence, their stoic demeanor induced by equal levels of pain. He and Shane had been best friends ever since Rick could remember. As much as he disagreed with Shane’s behavior, he also knew that Shane liked green Jolly Ranchers the best, and pulled his ear when he was nervous, and he missed his mom the most in the morning. It was these little things that kept them tied together even as Shane’s other friends wondered why he kept close to the weird quiet kid. They grunted goodbye to each other and parted to their classes. 

Rick’s girlfriend Lori was in his first class. She sat to his left unless she wanted to talk to her friend Lacy that day, then she sat two seats behind him. Everyone thought she was very pretty, with her wide eyes and her long brown hair that looked perfect no matter how it laid on her head. Her chest was quite flat but it made her more charming if anything. Rick didn’t know why she wanted to date him. 

Today, she waited outside the door to the classroom as others filed in, grabbing his arm affectionately as Rick passed her. They smiled warmly at each other and sat down, waiting for the teacher. Rick told her when they first started dating, about five months ago, that he didn’t like kissing in public much. He had always been a very private person and he didn’t like sharing an intimate display between two people with strangers that had no business with his personal life. To his slight surprise Lori had then on respected his preference and kept a relative distance at school. She snuck a hold of his hand sometimes and Rick found himself liking that simple affection. 

“You feeling okay?” Lori asked him in hushed tones. She often talked like that, and the way she made you lean closer to her made conversation feel like an intimate affair.   
“Alright, I guess. You?” Lori was at Shane’s get-together too last night. She arrived there before him, he didn’t know when. He tried not to let that bother him but failed sometimes. Not out of jealousy or that he thought there was something going on between his best friend and his girlfriend, it just sometimes made him feel more lonely and isolated. He reminded himself that it was selfish to think that way. So what if they wanted to spend time with people other than him?   
“I feel awful.” Lori responded to his question. The teacher began speaking then and they turned their attention away from each other. 

 

A few meaningless hours passed and it was lunchtime. Lori and Rick joined with Shane and he was leading then to meet up with his new girlfriend, Andrea. Rick remembered her from last night- she brought two bottles of whiskey so many of the slurred toasts were dedicated to her and her dad. 

“What happened to Jolene?” Rick asked his friend as the three of them made their way down the hallways.   
“I dumped her yesterday after we got back. She was annoying as fuck. Don’t go lookin’ at me like that.” Rick conceded and reigned in his exasperated stare. It was an ongoing issue between them, the frequency at which Shane goes through girlfriends. Rick just hated how Shane relied on having a partner, any warm female blond body, to make him feel wanted and loved. But he would never tell Shane that. 

They met Andrea outside of the Ornithology hallway, the glass-encased stiff birds stretched their wings behind her head. She was nice, unsurprisingly blond, and had a endearing messiness about her that made her a lot more human than some of Shane’s other girlfriends. She was quieter when she was sober but just as willful.   
They sat at an unoccupied table and talked about nothing. Rick’s attention was elsewhere when he saw something that caught him by the throat and shook him. 

It was the eyes- the boy. In the forest. Something that would be invisible to anyone who wasn’t subconsciously searching like Rick was. Subconscious became conscious. The blue gaze overlaying his waking brain aligned with those of real life. Two worlds collided. 

And in the distant corner of his brain the whispers quieted and ceased.   
Nothing Ever Happens  
Nothing Ever…   
Nothing… 

Something Happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all? You still with me? I know, I'm a slow writer XP. I've decided to try something fun with this fic, stretch out some new muscles on my writing skills. (lol what skills). I'm trying to focus more on emotion than actual events and dialogue, and there is a lot of emotion. Trust me. But I'm still learning and experimenting, so please let me know if you feel bored or confused with the pacing, anything. A great thing about a place like this is feedback from people who don't feel like they have to be nice to me just because they know me. Not that I don't appreciate nice comments ;). Now that I've written a novel down here JESUS CHRIST hope ya'll enjoyed!!! <3 <3 <3


	3. grey; she brought happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes living seems awful. Black. Sometimes unbearably white.  
> But the grey- it keeps you at surface level. Catch a breath of clean air when the waves retreat.

Daryl didn’t hate his life. No- it would have been so much easier if he had. Then, at least he would have run away, or done something more extreme…  
But no, he felt happiness sometimes too. There were times when his dad wasn’t drunk and he felt sort of like a father. There was the times when him and Merle used to play together, and the silent moments in the forest when he felt like a wisp of breeze among an unchanging plain.

It was the grey that left him tortured- wondering whether the next day held warm stomachs or broken bones. 

Daryl laid face-down on his old mattress as he thought about what had transpired earlier that day at school. A passerby would have thought nothing of it, a glance- that’s all. But he’s sure his blood turned to sludge for a moment. 

That day he saw the campers, the kids he had followed and terrified in the forest. Well, the boy Rick, Lori, Shane and a different blond girl. He swore that he and Rick made eye contact just as he was turning the corner and an expression of surprise mirrored on Rick’s own face. It certainly wasn’t expected. Since that day he had tried bitterly to forget what had happened, it made him extremely uncomfortable to know that his world was encroached on by strangers- his secrets that he kept under lock and key for all of his life.

Rick’s straight stare felt like a spear that cracked his carefully constructed shield. He was… Grey. 

Daryl knew when he saw them first that they looked familiar- after a little more observation he found out they were one year above him in their junior year, and were quite popular. Keeping his head down all day allotted little chance to recognize faces, instead he saw his shoes and papers and a blur of adolescent bodies, chatting heads.  
He didn’t know what compelled him to look up. It’s like his mind was searching for something. 

Unable to handle his restless brain, he pushed himself off his mattress and made the automatic journey out of his window. There was no glass or screen, only a square hole with shoe marks on the window pane. His body took him where he always went when he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts anymore, to the Cherokee reservation a mile or so to the East. 

The forest buzzed and groaned as Daryl traversed the familiar shortcut, partly a deer trail and partly a rut from his own feet. He absently recalled the first time he met who he now considers to be his second family. 

~

He was young, maybe seven or eight, and his dad had kicked him hard in the stomach. He ran outside and threw up violently, then kept walking.  
It was getting dark then but he stubbornly didn’t turn around, even as vespertine creatures crept around him. Shadows carried weight then but Daryl’s heart felt infinitely heavier. He tried to imagine his worries and pain trailing behind him like smoke and dissipating as he walked, leaving him clear and clean and shiny.  
Then he saw a light in the darkness before him, a flickering orange glow in the distance down a slope. Without hesitating he continued toward that light, being drawn like a moth. He came closer and heard noises, a beat of a shallow drum and singing voices as pure and earthy as woodwind instruments. 

They didn’t see him at first, a dozen or so shadowy figures darkened by the effulgent flames they sat around. There was an older lady and a young woman singing in tandem, their voices weaving and meeting in places, in a language that Daryl didn’t know. Someone beat the drum in a steady rhythm while a young man moved around the fire, performing a dance that resembled the way Merle taught him how to track and hunt animals in the forest- but it was infinitely more graceful and the young man held a long quivering spear as opposed to a crossbow. Daryl watched silently for a while, his eyes reflecting the flames until spots of orange stamped across his retinas. He felt as if he had stumbled across a different time, a different world. When the dancing man faced him he could see white and red paint streaked across his dark skin. 

After a while he felt his legs going numb and tingly underneath his crouching body. He moved to stretch them out in front of him one at a time, but the foot that he balanced on slipped on an unfortunately placed patch of mud. In an effort to silence his fall he grasped wildly onto a branch before him, and realized soon after that it was in fact rotten as it snapped and fell on top of him. Daryl figured he was bleeding a bit but didn’t dare to check as the music faltered and ceased. Fear paralyzed him and made stiff his muscles, He had learned in his seven years of living to expect pain and hatred from adults- it was better to be prepared for the worst and be pleasantly surprised than to be disappointed again and again.  
Whispers grew closer to his small body and he heard voices, saying; 

“What was that? A bear?” a whimper sounded from another high- pitched voice.

“Don’t scare your sister” said a voice that Daryl figured belonged to the old woman. “It was probably a rotten branch that fell on it’s own, or a raccoon.” The young man she was scolding seemed to have ignored her. 

“Don’t worry Isi, i’ll kill it whatever it is” There was some rustling and cries of protest, then footsteps tramped to where Daryl lay prone. A deeper voice commanded, walking forward as well;

“Mukki! Return the spear before you hurt yourself.” 

“Don’t call me that! I will protect us!” The younger boy was now very close. Daryl didn’t really understand what was happening but he recognised being threatened; someone had a spear, a weapon, and wanted to hurt him. He acted purely on instinct as he launched himself off the ground and at the attacker, a strangled primal cry ripped from his throat. He didn’t want to be the victim anymore, no matter what. 

His attacker was a young teenage boy who was thin and wiry and very, very surprised. The spear was knocked easily out of his hands as Daryl’s body collided with his, sending them to the ground. They clawed and kicked and punched wildly as several people made their way to the chaotic scene. A strong, broad hand grabbed Daryl by his shirt and lifted him high, and the teenager shuffled out from underneath him, cursing and breathing heavily. 

“Wha- wha- it’s a kid!” The entire group now encroached upon the disturbance, the young man who was dancing still holding Daryl at a ridiculous height, the boy kicking and scratching at the offending hand, a strange growl piercing the hushed forest. 

“Who are you child? Where did you come from?” the dancer questioned. He made to grab at Daryl’s jaw in an attempt to see his face but Daryl’s teeth sought flesh and found it, a coppery taste entering his mouth. He collided with the ground with a harsh thump. 

“He bit me! You little-” The dancer’s bare foot barely missed Daryl, still slightly recovering from impacting the hard ground. 

“Stop” 

A strangely powerful voice came from the old woman. Her face was soft, however, as she approached Daryl’s frightened form. 

“Oh my, such a scared little wolf pup.” Her warm tone soothed him like a lullaby. He looked up at the small, stout lady and her face was kind, etched by lines that told stories and housed eyes that crackled like embers. He had never experienced a kindness like this before but he likened it to what a mother’s embrace might have felt like. Something he didn’t know but expected, an otherness he discovered and suddenly the world grew larger, deeper. He felt his body crawl forward hesitantly as the woman crouched to his height. He stopped in front of her as they looked at each other. The rest of the group became ghosts in that moment. 

She reached out a weathered palm, similar to how one approaches an unpredictable animal. When Daryl didn’t move back she touched a line of split skin along his cheek and carefully wiped dirt from the wound. 

“I am Ninovan.” She said. “I will not harm you.” 

Daryl willed himself not to cry but he did anyway. As if born to do so he sought comfort in Ninovan’s arms as she opened them and together they sat on the floor of the forest, the moon set firm as if in witness.

His life from then on became better than it was. He started to call Ninovan the Cherokee word for grandma, Enisi, and she would say that happiness became him. They were a small tribe, one of the only surviving original groups from before most of them were moved to Oklahoma. They told him that the whites forced only households with a Cherokee at it’s head to be removed, that’s how they banded together and kept their culture after all this time. They lived in a small community together, four old trailer homes and a designated circle for powwows in a forest clearing a couple of miles from town. 

There were many times now when Daryl would run to their open arms wounded and bleeding from the doings of his father and they would piece him back together without question, only saddened eyes. The dancer from their first meeting, whom he now knew as Atohi, stated many times that he wished to seek vengeance on the man that hurt the boy, maybe in not so many words, but Daryl always refused. He also refused the many offers to live at the small reservation and while it sounded very nice to not have to see his sad house anymore, the thought of leaving also felt wrong. Will Dixon remained his father even when he was horrible to his sons. 

And so he melded perfectly into the tribe, the broken families accepting the broken boy as one of their own. He bickered playfully with Mukki, whose real name was Dustu, he attended powwows and listened to stories of spirits and the earth and better times. He was affectionately called wa-ya by them and he was told it meant ‘wolf’ in their language of old. 

~

“Wa-ya!” Someone called to him, sixteen now and hardened, gentle only to his beloved tribe. It was Isi who cried out to him, little sister to Dustu and Atohi. Dustu once said that she had a crush on Daryl and he didn’t fully believe him, but sometimes he saw her soft frequent glances and nervous thin fingers. She ran to meet him now, her long black hair trailing like ribbons behind her. She was a little younger than him but everybody in the tribe seemed to have eyes that expressed age greater than their bodies. 

“Come quick Wa-ya!” She beckoned him closer. He sped up his pace immediately, a sting of panic entering him at her frantic movements. 

“What is it Isi? What happened?” Daryl caught up with the girl and searched her almond eyes for fear or pain but found only excitement. 

“It’s Suzie. She’s in labor!” Isi answered him with a grin. 

Ninovan had two daughters, the older of which was the mother of Atohi, Dustu and Isi. She died shortly after Isi was born. The younger daughter, in her teens, renounced her Cherokee heritage and left the reservation, taking on the name Suzie. She returned when she learned of her sister’s death, crying and begging forgiveness, bitterly regretting the time spent alienated from her family and tribe. But soon afterward she left again for her second life in the city, telling her mother that it was too painful to remain, she saw her sister’s face in between the trees and heard her singing on the steps of her family’s trailer. 

She returned more than ten years after that- this time bearing a child, only a small seed in her womb. Daryl was fully a part of the tribe then, and he watched on the sidelines as she begged her mother not to turn her away and recounted tearfully that the child’s father was awful, and wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. When she tried to explain her culture’s faith and the sacredness of life to him he laughed and said that she wasn’t really Cherokee anymore anyways. This scared her greatly and she felt the emptiness that once held her culture and tradition and family, and so she returned, and was forgiven, and stayed. They continued to call her Suzie, Ninovan stating that if she chose that name, then it was now hers. Daryl figured it was a small punishment for her betrayal and a reminder that her actions would have consequences, but it also recognized her independance. 

She eyed Daryl and was confused by him at first, while the others would only tell her; ‘he’s part of the tribe now’ and nothing else. However, time passed and they formed an unspoken truce based on the pain that they both experienced and the unlikely haven they found in the reservation. Their bond was now as unbreakable as everyone else’s, weaving themselves together in the tapestry that made up the small tribe.

Daryl and Isi now ran together to the reservation in excitement and anxiousness. Ninovan was acting as midwife and while she was very capable, childbirth was always dangerous. They made it to the trailer that Suzie was staying in and found Dustu, as well as an older man named Kanuna, crouching outside of the screen door. Kanuna was Ninovan’s nephew. They looked up when the two younger teens skidded to a halt before them. 

“Well? Any news?” Isi insisted, slightly out of breath. Dustu was about to speak when Atohi creaked open the screen door with a strange look on his face. Daryl was certain that if his skin tone allowed it, Atohi would have been pale as dawn. 

“Not yet” he answered for his little brother. “But it’s gonna be soon.”

And so they waited together, kicking gently at the dusty ground, anticipation stilling their words. Tribe members passed by and asked for news but were met with shrugs instead. They went back to their lives and part- time jobs. Kanuna left them around five o’clock to eat dinner with his wife two trailers down. Finally, after what felt like days, Ninovan, looking exhausted, opened the door and called to them. 

“Children.” She called. “Meet your cousin.” 

They excitedly entered the small trailer, Isi squealing and clapping her hands, Dustu doing a strange sort of jumping dance. Daryl slowly approached and hesitated with his eyes on the roughly- made steps. Ninovan turned to see him shuffling his feet. She clicked her tongue. 

“Wa-ya hurry up. Your family needs you.” Daryl grinned at her and kept grinning as he entered the crowded room where Suzie and the baby lay on an old bed. 

“Ahyoka look!” Dustu was saying to the red, wrinkled swaddle that was the newborn baby. “This is the only chance you’ll have to se Wa-ya smiling! Don’t miss it!” Daryl shoved him lightly in retaliation while the others chuckled. 

“Ahyoka?” Daryl asked Suzie softly. She looked sweaty and beyond exhausted, but she glowed brighter than the sun. She nodded and gazed at Daryl fondly.  
“It means ‘she brought happiness’. And she did- she gave me my past back and brought me a future.” Suzie cried softly and her family cried with her. They cried for her past and out of pure joy, that something so beautiful could come of such a world. A grey world, Daryl would have said. But this day, this moment, shone brighter than he would have ever thought possible. 

That night Daryl, Isi, Dustu and Atohi slept outside beneath the stars wrapped in blankets from their beds. They were all still giddy from excitement, chattering about the future. Isi was very excited to have another young girl around the res and explained to the boys how she would have sleepovers with her all the time and braid her hair. Dustu reminded her that Ahyoka was still ‘all bald and red’ and Isi slapped his arm, chastising him for even hinting that she was anything less than breathtaking. They all laughed at that, their hearts too full to hold anger for very long. 

Daryl stared at the stars with his hands cradling his head, the bodies of his brothers and sister tangled with his. He thought of his father and how he felt like lightyears away. He thought about the enigma that was Rick and their strange gravitational pull. 

Before he drifted into sleep he thought that no matter how endlessly black, or confusingly grey his life became, he would endure anything because feelings this bright did, in fact, exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! I hope you'll indulge my little head cannon ;D. I hinted at it a little bit in the first chapter but I probably should have hinted a little more, because now I feel like I just threw this at you guys a little. I really hope you rolled with my loving punches (lol).  
> Anyways! I felt bad for that last short chapter so this is a little longer. TRUE FACT: I didn't make up the fact about the Trail of Tears only moving some of the Cherokee peoples from their land, of course that doesn't make it in any way okay, but I thought it was interesting. Also, all of the names of the tribe members have meanings, look it up if you want or ask me- I just don't want to type them all out right now haha. I did do some actual research on Cherokee reservations in Georgia and tried to do everything true to real life. It probably doesn't do anything for this little fic but it feels better to me to have some semblance of truth. I am part Cherokee myself so maybe that was another factor in wanting to take this story in that direction.  
> Plus, who doesn't love a little texture?


	4. grey part II: Dixon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newton's Third Law of Motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
> 
> happiness never stays too long

By the time Daryl met the back of his father’s house it was late morning and the dew all but left the young grass. He heaved his thin body through his open window as it waited for him, a portal to the life to which he knew he would inevitably return. 

 

The lightness of his heart lived in him in the form of a buoyant step and and a wide-eyed openness that felt unfamiliar. It ebbed slightly when he heard his father moving about the small house. 

 

“Boy!” Daryl heard his father call him. A part of him wanted to catapult himself through the window once again but another part that feared further punishment was stronger. He crept through the creaky hallway to the kitchen where Will Dixon was. Daryl said nothing and waited expectantly in the narrow doorway, right bony shoulder braced heavily on the unpainted wood. 

“Ain’t got no food, boy.” Will glanced at him and looked away again, continuing his furious rummaging through the near- empty cabinets. Daryl thought he had just his father’s eyes. A steely coldness to them that he hated. 

“Got some rabbits drainin’ on the porch” Daryl mumbled. He scratched a scar near the sleeve of his dirty T-shirt. 

“Why ain’t they skinned yet? Too busy doin’ jack shit?” His father bit out, still not looking in his direction. Daryl tightened his lips around the retort that begged release. He watched his father stalk heavily around the cramped wooden cabin knocking into walls and cabinets. Daryl’s body moved not a muscle but his eyes traced the hungover man. He heard his father end the stiff conversation with; “Boy, I said I ain’t got no food. That means fuck off and do somethin’ about it. Waste of damn space.” Air seemed warmer as he left the kitchen. 

 

Daryl remained still until the crack of a beer sounded from the next room. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants and let his feet carry him from the cabin.

 

Rocks tumbled and lept from his heavy feet that dragged on the dirt road. Two miles to town and his steady breathing acted as his pedometer. In, out, a careful metronome that marked the time that felt too slow in passing. He didn’t talk back to his father anymore, the wounds on his back clear examples of his reasons. He used to fight back more. He used to punch and scream and curse his father. 

_ You can have my pride, take it _ ! Daryl remembered silently yelling this to his father at his worst. When he felt less than nothing and the prison of his mind felt inescapable. A tiny spark in the darkness kept him afloat. 

 

_ Take my pride, but my spirit won’t ever be yours. _

But the spark faded, he didn’t fight anymore, and there was an emptiness where his spirit once lived. Even when Ninovan insisted that she saw it still, Daryl knew something inside him was broken. 

So now, he kept his breathing like a metronome. 

  
  


He dimly acknowledged the bustle that marked his passage into the town center. Old pickups rattled through potholes while they were nodded at by the elderly on their raised porches with their blackened gums and their filmy eyes. Those eyes followed Daryl as he passed but he got no nods. His peripheral caught their familiar judgement as he stared straight ahead. 

He slowed down instinctively, or more like habitually, in front of a house much like his except for some things, like the blue chipping paint and the tall chain- link fence. While passing he saw what he was searching for, the face of a woman. She had short hair and a kind, pained expression that spoke more than words would have. She was almost always at that window whenever he passed their house, mending clothing or making food, sometimes with a little blonde girl. Daryl thought absently that it seemed like she looked out the window for him just as compulsively as he looked inside for her. Recognition passed between their gazes as he made his way by. 

The people in this town hated him- were scared of him. That word- ‘Dixon’. It rattled behind their teeth like something wild and foul. He preferred it that way. 

The soles of his tattered shoes scraped the uneven pavement of Miller’s Market as he strode past small children who whispered and hid, and mothers with their hair tied up who didn’t even see him anymore. He kept his fists clenched deep in his pockets. 

 

Milk. Sliced bread. Spaghetti-os. More Spaghetti-os.

 

He calculated in his head how many cans would exceed the twenty dollar bill in his back pocket. Not very many. He looked to the ground and saw the mud he tracked in, staining the polished white floor. 

 

On his way to the checkout aisle he saw something that make his heavy footsteps slow, a vivid memory swallowing him like a dense fog. 

 

_ His older brother pinched his skinny arm suddenly, and he looked at the broad jaw and merciless eyes that jeered at him. Daryl saw the laughter rumble around his muscular chest.  _

_ “Wanna see a magic trick little brother?” _

_ Daryl’s eyes were wide and clear and more innocent then, he nodded his head with apprehension.  _

_ “See that pack of gum for a buck?” His tongue rolled around in his wide mouth as he came closer to the small boy.  _

_ Merle’s large, calloused hand crept out and grabbed the pack of gum, displaying it with deliberate movements and dropping it unceremoniously into his front jeans pocket, a twisted imitation of a children’s magic show. _

_ “Wa-lah! It’s free now.” He laughed harshly at his little brother’s expression, glancing around the near- empty grocery store in fear of having his brother taken away to juvie again.  _

_“Your turn Darleena.”_ _Merle’s voice rumbled at him in a terrifyingly familiar way. Even in a whisper Merle’s words pierced harder than twenty trumpets. Daryl’s arms tightened around the groceries that he was told to carry._

_ “You too pussy? S’ that it?” His deep voice had tones of disapproval that cut his brother like a dagger. Daryl hung his head and braced for impact as Merle pushed past him and scoffed, sauntering through the fluorescent hallways. He quickened his pace to catch up.  _

 

In the present moment, he kept his eyes trained on a pack of gum. The voice of his brother as loud and harsh as it was that day so long ago.  __

He imagined himself shrugging on the harder skin of Merle, his posture lifted, his eyes narrowed, the voice in his ears was willed to take residence in his throat. His hand, or his brother’s hand, reached out shakily and took the gum that stared back at him. He stored the evidence in the pocket of his jeans. 

 

He looked over his right shoulder in a sudden impulse and saw a pair of startled blue eyes looking back directly at him. His head whipped back around to his front in a failed attempt at being casual. It was that same guy- Rick. Blood pooled to his cheeks as he realized that he was caught, unsure about how to proceed. The voice of his brother whispered to him once more, it said: “ _ Pussy!”  _

 

He stomped in Rick’s direction, the boy still frozen. A look of nervous fear crossed his angular face, an expression that most people took on in Daryl’s presence. He caught the boy’s gaze in the corner of his wild eyes and grumbled, “The fuck you lookin’ at?”

“N-nothing. I just-” The other boy stuttered and then snapped his mouth shut as Daryl swept past him in a cloud of electrified energy. His stomach sank in dread as he heard a voice call out from behind him.

“Wait!” Daryl kept his pace but he heard footsteps rushing up to meet him anyways. “What’s your name?” 

“My… Name?” He repeated in disbelief, kicking himself internally for engaging with him.

“Yeah. I just figured, since you keep appearin’ in my life and all…” 

“Ain’t done it on purpose-”

“Sure, it’s not like you burst through the woods to scare the shit outta me ‘n my friends or anything.” Rick muttered and Daryl hoped the other boy couldn’t see the amused grin that was struggling to escape.  

 

In the checkout aisle Daryl experienced the strange sensation of being intensely aware of his own body. The movement of his hands, the shuffling of legs, felt monumental. Also felt was the weight of Rick’s glances, the presence of the body standing behind his own. Daryl wanted to attribute the feeling to fear that the other boy would reveal his theft to the lackluster cashier, but somehow this friendliness that somehow formed between them was much scarier. He didn’t trust it. 

 

He finished paying and found himself slowing incrementally to allow Rick to catch up.  _ Idiot. _ He berated himself mentally- It seemed a theme recurring. 

 

“Hey!” Rick called in a breathy voice. He had caught up by now, his own groceries swinging around him like pendulums. His obnoxious curls bounced easily atop his head. 

“You still didn’t tell me” The boy insisted. Daryl tore his eyes from the messy strands to scrutinize the sidewalk being travelled on. 

“Tell you what?” Daryl muttered. 

“Your name” He clarified.

“The fuck do you care?”

“I just do.”

“You should know already. ‘Round here- I’m fucking  _ infamous _ ” Daryl spat bitterly, gesturing rather rudely to an old woman hurriedly crossing to the other side of the street after casting worried glances towards her trajectory. Rick paused.

“I don’t listen to none of that gossip. I’d rather see for myself.”

“Why don’t you see about pissin’ off?”   

Rick looked a little hurt but Daryl couldn’t bring himself to feel bad. He saw the pair of them through the eyes of the townsfolk: the shiny- eyed goody two shoes with a future associating with the bumfuck criminal nobody. He wanted to shut every set of shutters that opened to gawk at them, or else shove the boy somewhere far, far away from him. He sighed heavily.

“I ain’t just sayin’ that, neither. If you don’t stop talkin’ to me they gonna start spreadin’ shit about you too. My shitty company ain’t worth ruinin’ your reputation. Guys like me are the type that turn guys like you bad.”

“Why do you say ‘guys like you’- what type of guy am I? Ain’t you just doin’ the same as these folks that talk shit about you? What if I weren’t as much of a ‘good’ boy as you thought- and you weren’t never real ‘bad’ at all? What if we were all kinda the same?”

 

They both slowed to a halt without realizing why they had stopped. The contact that their eyes made charged the air like a live wire. 

“It ain’t gonna do you no good, thinkin’ like that. I know plenty of shitheads that’ll chew you up ‘n spit you out and it’ll make no difference to ‘em. Ain’t how the world works.” Daryl looked to the side and broke the fissure between them. The town seemed to quiet. 

“I’m a Dixon. Daryl Dixon. Since you wanted to know my damn name so bad. Ain’t got a ‘good’ bone in my body.”

When he looked back to the boy he found Rick’s eyes still trained on his face. Rick opened his mouth then shut it again, as if deciding against saying something. His lips then twisted into a wry smile. 

“Well Daryl, it’s nice to meet ya. How’s about you share some of that gum?”

 

Daryl did.

  
  
  


.: :.

  
  


It was the afternoon when Daryl returned to his father’s cabin. Cigarette smoke permeated his lungs upon entrance and he heard the telltale sound of a beer can cracking open. He made a stealthy beeline for the kitchen. 

As he stashed groceries in the empty cupboards his mind replayed what had transpired earlier that day as if it were a surreal dream. Did he really just nod goodbye to golden boy Rick, parting on friendly terms? Was it his own mouth that promised to hang out again soon? Wait- did he just  _ hang out _ with the guy?

It wasn’t the same as spending time at the reservation- they were family. This boy Rick was exactly the type he thought he’d never get to know. The type of guy that Merle would yell obscenities at through the window of his pickup just to see him jump. 

 

His clunking thoughts were interrupted by a great crash in the living room. His body froze like that of a deer being spotted before the hunt. The lumbering form of his father was heard stumbling through the hallway. He was, unsurprisingly, very drunk. 

“Where the hell have you been all fuckin’ mornin’ boy?” Will slurred. Daryl constructed his shield and faced him. His broad face was hard and he seemed to strain his sweat stained wife-beater. Disgusting.

“Gettin’ groceries” Daryl murmured and attempted to leave the cramped kitchen only to be stopped by his father’s hand upon his chest. The force made him stumble back a little. 

“Thought you’d take yer damn sweet time, huh?”   

“I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what fucker?” Will caught him by the throat and held him there, Daryl concentrated on pulling air through the constriction. Bitten nails and dirty fingers pried at unmovable flesh. 

“See this shit? It’s mine.” He gestured crudely around him. “This house ‘s mine. You’re mine. ‘S all you’re gonna ever be. Don’t you go on forgettin’ that.” His father released him violently, the boy colliding with the wooden cabinet behind him. His head pounded and he felt the familiar sting of split skin on his cheekbone. He tried to swallow and his throat throbbed in protest. 

Daryl heard his father stumble back into the living room. The black dots in his vision threatened to take over entirely.

  
“FUCK YOU!” He tried to scream. It came out like a wail. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm officially the worst updater ever.
> 
> more Daryl POV because I can't control myself. I actually need to stop.   
> Also, how are you? how is your 2017 going? Talk to me, I love making conversation!

**Author's Note:**

> My first Walking Dead fic! Yay!! I love this show, if you can't tell by my sneaky references to episode titles and notable quotes :) I don't really have a plan for this one, just some ideas to roll with, I hope you'll bear with me! I would love some feedback, suggestions, insults, ect. I just want to hear your brains. PLEASE ENJOY!!!!!!


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